The present invention relates to children""s safety swimwear and more specifically to swimwear with a locator buoy.
The affinity of children for water is well known and it has long been a problem for parents or other supervisors to know the exact location of their wards at play in venues where the visibility of the water is restricted due to suspended material and/or turbulance, e.g., at swimming holes, on river banks and particularly on crowded seaside beaches. The risk is particularly great for small children playing in the surf where they may be knocked from their feet by a wave and swept away, seaward or up or down the beach, by the ocean currents.
Brightly colored and distinctive clothing is an advantage, but clothing is not always visible to the supervisor as the clothing may be submerged in normal play and of no assistance whatsoever when the child is submerged. Brightly colored floating toys offer some protection. However, it is difficult for a child to freely swim or play in or near the water while maintaining contact with such toys, and they are often discarded. Moreover, such toys are of no assistance in the event a child is inadvertently separated from the toy and in distress.
Brightly colored personal floatation devices such as water wings or life jackets are also helpful but are generally bulky and a great annoyance to the child when playing in and out of the water or merely wading in the surf. In addition, such devices interfere with swimming and playing in deeper waters because of their buoyancy. Children often want to dive in the water and play games that require freedom of motion and unencumbered swimming, and personal floatation devices interfere with such normal play.
There are specialized devices that assist the location of an underwater swimmer or scuba diver. Such devices generally consist of a small float attached to the wrist or ankle of a diver where they can be selectively released by the diver in the event of an underwater emergency to float to the surface and thus mark the location of the diver. By way of example, the Gooding U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,638 discloses a selectively releasable float which may be appropriate for trained divers, but is not appropriate for small children. In addition to the requirement that they have to be released, inadvertent release may be a hazard because the tether does not retract and a child may become entangled in the tether.
There are also flotation devices such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5.030,152 which automatically activate upon contact with the water. Such flotation devices are not suitable where contact with the water is anticipated in normal play. Some devices, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,527,504, provide only a marker float or dye which is automatically activated upon contact with the water. Such devices are not suitable where contact with the water is anticipated in normal play, and the dye tends to become dispersed where there is any wave action.
As shown in the Moore U.S. Pat. No. 1,588,798, it is also known to attach a self winding buoy to the body of a swimmer by a belt secured to the body of the swimmer so that the swimmer may be pulled to the surface by the buoy line, the buoy automatically releasing upon submergence of the swimmer. Such devices are not suitable in monitoring the activities and whereabouts of a child while at play in and near the water and the location of the reel externally of the float presents a safety hazzaard.
Many of these problems have been addressed in applicant""s copending application, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. That application was directed generally to a buoy for selective attachment to the child or to the child""s swimwear. However, it has been found advantageous to integrate the buoy with the swimwear to increase the likelihood that the buoy will be worn, to minimize the interference of the buoy with the child""s play by dictating its placement on the child, to reduce the likelihood of injury to the child from improper attachment, etc.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to obviate many of the disadvantages of known children""s water safety devices and to provide novel safety swimwear facilitating the location of a child playing in or around water.
It is another object of the present invention to provide swimwear for a child which has a locator buoy which does not interfere with the normal play of the child in or out of the water.
These and many other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims when read in conjunction with the appended drawings and the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.